Peter Fletcher

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What do we mean by "social network sites"

January 23, 2008 by Peter Fletcher

There appears to be a fair amount of confusion around what is meant when people refer to the term “social network/ing site”. For many the first response is to equate the term with sites such as Facebook and Myspace. Dana boyd makes this observation and points out that such a narrow-cast definition precludes other platforms of interaction such as blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking sites. Can flickr and Youtube, for example, be classified as social networking sites?

I would contend there’s a distinction between social networking per se, which can and does happen in real life, and social networking sites, social software, and collaborative software.

To give examples, social networking often takes place at a pub. You arrange to meet a friend, they bring along one of their friends, who you meet and with whom you form a life-long friendship. For me, a network can best be likened as a spiders web where threads connect and form paths to all other parts of the web. Meeting friends friend in this way creates a new connection and a new thread leading to other similar opportunities.

Boyd suggests that social networking emphasises the initiation of relationships and proposed an early definition of a social networking site that included mention of the ability of participants to interact with strangers. Certainly the meeting of strangers happens in a networking environment, but I would argue that social networking is very much driven by, or augmented by established relationships that encourage and enable the development of further relationship connections. Social networking, both on and off-line, is lubricated by a conducive environment.

Narrowing the definition down to “social network sites” Boyd points out that the term networking is problematic in that it indicates a much more active role of the initiation of new relationships between strangers than actually occurs on social network sites. Whilst new connections occur, she believes, the primary reason for people to be on a social network site is to maintain a relationship with people they already know. On most SNS’s, Boyd observes, a participants profile is usually supplemented by a display of a person’s contact or friends network; and it is amongst this group that most of the network activity occurs.

However, this argument also has it’s problems. Certainly on “social network sites” by which I refer here to as the likes of MySpace and Facebook, there is a level of passiveness to the activity of networking. There appears, from my experience to be little in the way of any active efforts to become acquainted with perfect strangers. However, to use these sites as the standard bearers, whilst understandable, would preclude others where activity has a very different nature.

As examples, sites such as RSVP, Adultfriendfinder, Xtube, and a host of other adult networking sites – where the active pursuit of new connections is the expectation rather than the exception – would be precluded from boyd’s narrow-cast definition of a “social network site”. Such a preclusion makes sense if what we are attempting to research are those sites where the networking is much more passive and benign. I would question the value of research, though, that failed to take into account these more assertive networking fora.

Going further with this problematic term of “network” or “networking” is the difficulties faced when we begin to consider the nature of a blog. Some blogs, such as Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist, and Darren Rowse’s Problogger, are heavily trafficked by a loyal readership who regularly contribute and debate via comments. The activity in which these people are engaged appear to be both in the nature of “networking”, as in people attempting to create new connections with other readers through interesting comments, and “network”, as in a network of bloggers.

Further still, there exist other platforms of collaboration and interaction, which create connections where none previously existed (with a nod and smile to dana boyd). Is it relevant for the sake of research purposes to exclude wikis and photo and video sharing sites from the field of focus? My instinct tells me no.

I’m still a long way from developing a definition, however I feel a sense that any definition that points to socially oriented human interaction on the Internet should necessarily be broad and inclusive. Only at the pointy end of the research might it be relevant to narrow the field down so as to achieve needed clarity and direction.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Danah Boyd, definitions, social network sites, social networking

Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck

January 22, 2008 by Peter Fletcher

Here’s a few comments on an article from Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
London, Los Angeles, New Delhi and Singapore Vol 14(1): 13–20

Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck
Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence
danah boyd
Harvard University and University of California-Berkeley, USA

Boyd argues that changes made to the public feed feature on Facebook have significanly altered the dynamic of what is viewed as private. She uses the example of a party conversation where one needs to shout to be heard only to find that everything suddenly goes quiet as you’re about to finish your sentence. What was a conversation protected in some way by the din of the surroundings, the need to be physically proximate, and the assessment that only those nearby could hear what was being said suddenly becomes a very public communication.

Boyd notes that a similar event happened when Facebook created the public feed and caused what seemingly were private moments and events – despite them being available if someone searched hard enough – into easily accessible public information. It is this disruption she suggests that is new in the digital world.

In the physical world we have become accustomed to ways to protect our privacy, notably walls, physical distance, volume of speech. However, Boyd points out that in a digital world these disappear and are replaced by search capabilities that make previously “private” information very public.

Privacy is all about control one has about information about the self, Boyd suggests. Information is private therefore, not because it is not known, but because it is carefully controlled. It is far more difficult to keep a secret then to not allow the information out at all. Some information, she opines, is only relevant in certain social settings, but Facebook’s public feed obliterated the context of this “grey”area information and disrupted the way in which people approached their privacy online.

This collapsing of social domains has resulted in what Boyd calls “social convergence” where previously discrete social contexts are brought together through technologies and digitisation. This convergence raises a number of questions, says Boyd, and significant concerns about the future of privacy as people deal with these converged domains without any form of social scripts.

Filed Under: Privacy Tagged With: convergence, Danah Boyd, exposure, invasion, Privacy, social networking

Do social networking sites really result in networking?

January 22, 2008 by Peter Fletcher

Dana Boyd claims that:

Social network sites do not help most youth see beyond their social walls. Because most youth do not engage in “networking,” they do not meet new people or see the world from a different perspective. Social network sites reinforce everyday networks, providing a gathering space when none previously existed.

I can’t see how this statement stacks up? How can Boyd say that “most youth don’t engage in “networking””? If someone adds a friends friend as a friend, does that not amount to “networking”? Or is that something else? What if you started seeing that person offline? Still not networking? I guess a rigourous definition of “networking” might say no, but instinctively I’d say it was networking.

Then there’s the bit about social networks reinforcing everyday networks, but then she says that it’s a gathering space where none previously existed. That just doesn’t make much sense to me. If they reinforced everyday networks surely the networks existed before.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Danah Boyd, social networking

November 8, 2007 by Peter Fletcher

Danah Boyd on Social Networking sites
Mp3 audio

Persistence – what you say stays around. Conversations in a park disappears once the conversation finishes.

Search-ability – people can be found eg marketers, teachers, authority. People go to physical places to avoid people such as these. Can’t escape online

Replicability – People can copy and paste conversations to a more public environment.

Invisible audiences – in real spaces we modulate our voices but online this tends to change

People have ‘friends’ online as a way of imagining the audience of friends – gives a sense of our audience. How can people be simultaneously cool to parents and friends online?

How are people creating who they are in an online public world?

Social networking becomes the primary place of public ‘hang out’ for teenagers in the US because there are less places in public for young people to hang out in the real world.

https://peterfletcher.com.au/2007/11/08/154/

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Danah Boyd, social networking

About Peter

Speaker, trainer and coach. I write about living, loving and working better. Love a challenge. More...

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